Claire had meanwhile exulted in her economies, and conducted them with that same easy tact and skill which had marked her past supervision of a large and splendid establishment. She still preserved a certain residuum of friends. There was no ascetic renunciation of all worldly pleasures, either on her own or Hollister's part. It amused her to observe just whom she retained as her intimates and allies. The survival of the fittest, in this respect, was something to note and value. It showed her that the gay throng in which she had shone was not all made of worthlessly flippant members. But those, both men and women, whom she now liked to have about her had each stood some pleasant test, had each presented to her some solid or sterling trait of mind or character, which gave them a passport into the gentler, healthier, and wiser conditions of her new life. Beverley Thurston paid only rare visits to her home. She understood why he did not come oftener; she never pressed him to come. She had thanked him for his great service, with moist eyes and breaking voice. But she had not told him of the sweet ascendancy that her husband had gained. She had tried to let him see this change. Such revelation had been less difficult than spoken words; for all words on a subject that had now become so holy appeared to her impious. During many days after imparting to her husband the knowledge that he must henceforward receive her mother into his household, she had dreaded the clash of their widely opposite natures, and foreseen trouble that would only lend weight and severity to that which fate had already inflicted. But by degrees she found herself laughing with Herbert at the shadows of her own fears. He treated Mrs. Twining as a kind of grim joke. With her invigorated health, she was prepared to hold him strictly accountable for his altered circumstances. Her sarcasms were more pitiless than Claire had ever remembered them. She took the attitude of a person who has been shut out from a banquet until the viands are all demolished, and then admitted to feed upon the unsatisfactory débris. She had no intention whatever of forgiving Hollister his misfortunes. In all her career of repulsive deportment she had never achieved a more obnoxious triumph. And yet, by the sheer force of good-humored, gallant, conciliatory kindness, Hollister at length succeeded in conquering her. She found it simply impossible to annoy him. He insisted upon not taking her seriously. His amiability was so impenetrable that she finally receded before it, and began to profess toward him a sort of gloomy, reluctant liking. "I see," Claire said to him one day. "She is my punishment. But why should you share it?" "Nonsense," he answered. "I think she is immense fun." It seemed to Claire that he was quite in earnest as he thus spoke. "She really does like you," Claire said. "In all my life, Herbert, I have never known her to like--actually _like_--any one till now."